A huge bestseller in Germany, Defying Hitler is a memoir about the rise of Nazism in Germany and the lives of ordinary German citizens between the wars. This fresh and astute account offers a unique perspective on this era of twentieth-century history.

Covering the years from 1907 to 1933, Haffner's personal memories form the basis for questioning, analyzing, and interpreting much of Germany's history. His eyewitness account of groups such as the First Free Corps — the right-wing voluntary military force set up to suppress communism during the revolution of 1918 — which would provide training for many of the later Nazi storm troopers; the Hitler Youth movement, which swept the nation; the apocalyptic year of 1923 when inflation crippled the country; the peaceful Stresemann years; and Hitler's coming to power all contribute to the portrait of a country in a constant state of flux. Sebastian Haffner elucidates how the educated average German grappled with a rapidly changing society, while chronicling day-to-day changes in attitudes, beliefs, politics, and prejudices.

Available for the first time in English, this highly illuminating work is a unique portrait of a time, a place, and a people.

Oliver Pretzel, the translator of this work, is the son of Sebastian Haffner. He was born in 1938 shortly after his parents' arrival in England and was educated in England and Germany. He is a mathematics professor at Imperial College, London, and is married with three children.